Monday, March 30, 2009

Recipe: Vegan Chilli

This recipe is a repost of one of our sharehouse favourites; it's full of vegies that the kids will eat and perfect for any vegetarian or vegan visitors. For the more standard eaters add some cheese and sour cream and you're set.

Dice the onions and fry in a small amount of salt with a fair quantity of oil - make a pool about the size of the palm of your hand in the pan. Add the chilli flakes to the onion, and garlic if desired.

Add the beans with a little of the juice, more of it adds a slightly thicker consistency to the chilli from the bean proteins. The secret to really good thick chilli is to take a potato masher at this point and mash about half of the beans once they are hot from frying. This allows you to 'refry' the insides and releases much more of the protein into the sauce

Dice the capsicum and fry with the beans and onion, once this is soft add all the spices and fry into the vegetable mixture, add more oil if required. Once the vegetables have fried with the spices for about 2 minutes then add the tomatoes with a cup or two of water. Remember if you're feeling lazy you can add a pack of taco or chilli con carne seasoning rather than individual spices; be sure to check for animal stock powders though and remember that these spice packs usually contain bean flour or corn starch and so may require a little more liquid or oil to counteract.

Once at boiling point add the sweet corn and turn the temperature down to reduce the sauce some what. If you have the time over the course of a day, adding more water and then reducing multiple times makes a softer thicker chilli as the beans and corn are softened.

You can serve this with just corn chips or rice cooked with chilli; however my favourite is to serve it in white flour tortillas with shredded lettuce, guacamole and tomato. Tortillas and plain salted Corn Chips should always be Vegan friendly but check for animal sourced preservatives on the packaging. Rosita's Mexican Meal Range are available at all Woolworth's and are not only Vegan friendly but damn good quality and Australian owned and made.

For those intent on animal products... This recipe works quite well with meat, just replace half the beans with some lean beef mince and reduce the amount of oil used. Service with sour cream and cheese for the dairy tolerant and thin of waist.